


the weird trio

by Quillium



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-10-20
Packaged: 2020-12-27 00:57:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21110066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillium/pseuds/Quillium
Summary: She groans, “Steve is restocking.”Jonathan beams, running his fingers through his hair. A hickey is visible right below his ear when he does that. “I know,” Jonathan says.“Okay,” Robin says, mystified.ORRobin acting as an Outsider POV on OT3.





	the weird trio

**Author's Note:**

> Not super satisfied with how this was written but I've been dying to write a Stranger Things fic so. This is what you get.

“That’s Nancy and Jonathan,” Steve says, nodding at the couple that stops by the front and peers at the specials scribbled on the chalkboard that Robin had to do because she lost their bet.

“Your ex and new bestie?” Robin asks, curling her fingers below her chin, raising an eyebrow at Steve.

Steve’s smile becomes a bit thinner, a bit cooler, as he says, haltingly, “Yes,” and Robin knows for a fact that Steve still likes Nancy. She isn’t nice enough to keep it to herself.

“You still like her.”

“I—she’s with Jonathan, right now,” Steve says. He attempts to look busy by opening the cash register before realizing there’s nothing really to do and closing it.

“Mm. So you’ll just pine away and die without telling anyone but me about it.”

“You know what, Robin?”

“I’m gorgeous?”

“You’re insufferable.”

“Those things can both be true.”

“In this case, just one of them.”

“Hm. You sure? I think I can be insufferable at times. I’m not _just_ a pretty face, you know.”

He shakes his head and a laugh escapes, “You’re ridiculous.”

Robin lifts a shoulder and smiles, wry, “I try.”

Nancy and Jonathan look in through the window and wave at Steve.

He waves back, grinning dopily.

Robin rolls her eyes and pokes Steve’s arm as Nancy and Jonathan step into the ice cream parlour, hand in hand, grinning, “What are you going to do, lover boy?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Steve says, so matter-of-fact that Robin grins at the humour, “Hey, Jonathan, Nance. How’s it going?”

“The guys at the office are being total jerks,” Nancy groans, flopping over the counter and fiddling with Steve’s hand, “I wish I had your bat so I could just,” she mimes hitting something and makes a _pop_ sound with the strike.

Steve laughs, “And their heads would go flying?”

“_Exactly_. You get me. Jonathan thinks I’m overreacting.”

“How _dare_,” Steve gasps, pressing a hand to his chest.

“I think that it’s just a summer job,” Jonathan says, spreading his hands out and pouting at Steve, “And Nancy can’t expect everything to go so perfect so fast. There will be tons of other chances in New York.”

“No, no, _no_,” Steve shakes his head and taps Jonathan, “A good boyfriend would _listen_ and _sympathize_ with his girlfriend, not _rationalize_. Even if it were true—“ he pauses and turns to Nancy, “Which, maybe, in part, but of course, your feelings are totally valid and the guys are totally jerks—“ turns back to Jonathan, “You must _empathize_ and say _you’re totally right, I totally understand, I completely feel what you’re feeling_.”

“What’s what _you’re_ here for,” Jonathan laughs.

“I’m dumping you,” Nancy announces, “Steve’s my one true love now.”

The three of them laugh.

Robin had been pretty sure that Steve liked Nancy romantically speaking, but now she’s not so sure.

“Wait, sorry,” Steve turns to her, “Guys, this is Robin. She’s my coworker and a total pain in the ass.”

“He means to say, I’m smarter than him and it makes him feel dumb,” Robin swings her head towards him and sticks a hand out to Nancy, “Love the hair.”

“Thanks!” Nancy beams, “Love yours, too. Short hair is so convenient.”

“Right? You know, I’m pretty sure one of these days Steve is going to grow his hair longer than mine—”

__

“Jonathan!” Steve lights up as he jogs out to Jonathan, Robin trailing slowly behind him, “What are you doing here?”

“Just getting a gift for Will,” Jonathan beams, reaching out to brush a stray piece of hair from Steve’s face, “You two getting off work?”

“Yup,” Steve agrees, “Need any help?”

“That would be nice,” Jonathan agrees, smile soft for a moment before he turns to Robin, and starts, like he’s forgotten that she’s there, “You want to come, too?”

“Sure,” Robin says, rolling her neck, “Why not? Where are we heading?”

“Somewhere with drawing supplies.”

“That’s pretty cool,” Robin bounces on her toes, “After you?”

“Of course,” Jonathan takes Steve’s hand in his, smiling for a moment, before dropping it. Steve’s hand jerks to his side lightning-quick, “Let’s go.”

__

“You have plans for after you graduate?” Jonathan asks, playing absent-mindedly with Steve’s hair.

“Not really,” Robin leans back and steals a sip from Steve’s slushy, cackling when he protests, “Just guess I’ll see where the wind takes me. I’ll apply to a few colleges but I won’t be too torn up if I don’t get it.”

Jonathan nods, a sharp, jerky thing, “That’s fine. Steve’s thinking of becoming a policeman.”

“Oh?” Robin smiles, “He didn’t tell me that lovely tidbit.”

Steve groans loudly and buries his face in Jonathan’s shoulder, “Why would you _tell her_.”

“I didn’t realize it was a secret,” Jonathan answers, clearly amused as he pats Steve’s shoulder, “Nothing wrong with having dreams for the future.”

Steve’s groan intensifies.

Robin hides a grin behind her hand.

__

Robin tells Steve that she likes girls, and all he does is criticize her taste in them.

She thinks about the way Steve looks at Jonathan sometimes, the way Jonathan plays with his hair, and wonders if it’s really Nancy that Steve has a crush on.

__

“How many of you gremlins does Steve keep around, anyways?” Robin asks Will, leaning over as he sketches the parlour in sharp, light lines, “I can’t keep track these days.”

“I think there are only six of us,” Will answers, going over the sketch in darker lines, “Were you trying to keep track before?”

“Yeah. I kept getting you and Nancy’s brother mixed up.”

“But we don’t look similar at all.”

“Eh. You’re all short and baby-faced. I only know Dustin because he’s got curls.”

“Do you know me _now_?”

Robin squints at him, “Will.”

“Yes.”

“That’s only because you look like Jonathan.”

“You can remember Jonathan but not me?” Will asks, teasing.

“Steve only has two friends his age, and I’m not about to mistake Jonathan for Nancy.”

Will hums and goes back to sketching.

__

“It’s Nancy’s,” Steve says idly when he catches Robin looking at the nail-bat, “Well, I mean, she technically gave it to me, now, but it’s hers. She and Jonathan made it.”

“For monster-hunting?” Robin nods, trying not to think of it as too surreal, “Neat. Why do you have it?”

Steve shrugs, “Demogorgan hunting. It was back when we weren’t dat—when _we_ were dating, sorry—and it just kind of fell into my hands.”

Robin wonders if Steve still dreams of dating Nancy, but banishes the thought. He’s pretty clearly supportive of Nancy and Jonathan, and he never gets that sad pining look around them.

She picks up the bat and swings it a bit.

“Neat,” Robin nods, approving.

“Yeah,” Steve agrees, “It is.”

__

“Um, hey,” Jonathan says, nervous, thumbs hooking in his pockets as he slides three VHS tapes onto the counter, “How are you?”

“How are you?” Robin echoes mockingly, “_How are you_? Still in awe of the fact that you liked Back to the Future.”

“Just because it had some flaws—“

“His dad was perving on his mom! That is _not_ a good start to a relationship! And what even says that girls have to get with guys? Can’t a girl be single forever—“

“I didn’t like it for the romance!”

“It was _not_ a good movie.”

“It _was_. Just because it had a few flaws doesn’t make it a bad movie!”

“I couldn’t enjoy it.”

“Well, you’re entitled to that, and just because I like a movie, doesn’t mean that we can’t be friends.”

Robin purses her lips together as she totals the amount and tells Jonathan, who pays up.

“Come on, Robin.”

She groans, “Steve is restocking.”

Jonathan beams, running his fingers through his hair. A hickey is visible right below his ear when he does that.

“I know,” Jonathan says.

“Okay,” Robin says, mystified.

“Actually, I think I’ll go chat with him some more?”

“Whatever,” Robin squints, “Tell him to rearrange the records while you’re at it, arranging by colour is a travesty and he needs to do it by _genre_.”

Jonathan wrinkles his nose, “Duly noted.”

__

“We’re making cookies,” Steve blurts, covered in flour and clearly not making cookies. Jonathan is sitting on his stomach, bent over, face smudged with batter.

“Right,” Robin says, leaning on the doorway, squinting.

“Yes,” Jonathan says, a beat too late, “Cookies. We’re baking—we’re baking them. For movie night.”

“And you ended up wrestling?” Nancy asks from behind Robin, laughing as she slides onto her knees and kisses Jonathan. She turns to Steve and leans down as though she might kiss him, too, but then stops short halfway there, and brushes some batter off his face instead, “You boys better clean this all up. Jonathan, get off Steve.”

Jonathan jumps away from Steve like he’s been scorched, and Steve quickly stands.

“Of course,” Jonathan says, twitchy, tossing Robin a nervous glance, “We’ll clean up.”

“Fantastic,” Nancy kisses him one more time, and Robin wonders if they had always been this affectionate. They hadn’t, right? Nancy had never given the impression of being this soft, “Robin and I are going to go relax and wait for the cookies.”

“Don’t we get any help cleaning?” Steve pouts.

Nancy’s face softens for a moment, before she shakes her head, “Nope. Absolutely not.”

“Alright, alright,” Steve groans and rests his head on Jonathan’s shoulder, “Guess it’s just you and me.”

“How awful,” Jonathan smiles softly, turning to fully face Steve.

“We’ll be painting nails while you guys do that,” Nancy says, turning to wink at Robin, “With the door shut, listening to music on full blast?”

“Sounds perfect,” Robin agrees, and she doesn’t understand these three, how they work, but she loves her weirdo new friends all the same.

__

“They called me a queer,” Will says quietly, explaining what happened as Nancy cleans his cut.

“Don’t listen to anything they say,” Nancy says, voice tight, angry, as she puts down the towel and rinses it in the basin, water turning pale pink, “They’re just a bunch of nobodies who don’t know anything.”

“I know,” Will says, and Robin wonders how cruel this can be, that a kid like this turns up bleeding like this saying _you were closer_ when she asks why he didn’t go to his brother, on the rumours that he’s queer.

“Queer,” Robin huffs, “That’s such an unimaginative way to insult someone.”

“It’s not an insult,” Nancy says, “There’s nothing wrong with being queer,” her eyes, boring into Robin’s, a challenge, a dare to disagree.

“Of course not,” Robin says, quietly, “Nothing wrong with loving anyone.”

“Yeah,” Nancy says, shoulders relaxing, eyes lowering as she bandages Will’s arm, “Yeah, nothing wrong with it at all.”

Robin wonders why Nancy was so defensive.

__

“It’s Pride Month,” Nancy declares, sliding over so that Robin can flop down next to her, painting Jonathan’s nails rainbow, his thumb red, his next finger oranges, and so forth, “So we’re celebrating.”

It’s dark outside, moon high in the sky, and it’s—well, for lack of a more mature term—a sleepover at Steve’s place, mattresses on the floor and random shit being used to hang up a blanket to make a fort.

“Hawkins is a bit backwards,” Jonathan says, quietly, not even worried about how Robin will react because he trusts her, by now, _knows _her by now, well enough to understand that she’s queer (though not exactly how), “But we should still be able to have some fun.”

“Do me, next,” Robin says, squinting at the wide variety of nail polish, “Shades of pink.”

It’s as close to coming out as she’s done.

From the looks Jonathan and Nancy give her, they know and understand.

Jonathan grins at her, “Girls, right?”

Robin smiles back. She hasn’t had something like this, where people understand her, where people just _know_ and it’s normal. She’s overwhelmed with gratefulness that Steve worked with her, that she met him and his friends—her friends, now.

“Yeah,” she agrees, softly.

“You should wake Steve,” Nancy says, nodding at Steve, who’s using Jonathan’s lap as a pillow, “he can paint better than me.”

“Okay,” Robin agrees, and dumps half her cup of water on his face.

He wakes, sputtering and shouting, and she laughs at him, louder than she ever thought a friend could make her laugh.

__

“Flowers?” Robin leans over the vase in Jonathan’s bedroom and pokes the roses, “Didn’t take Nancy for the romantic type.”

“She isn’t,” Jonathan says. Stares at Robin for a moment, frowning, and then rolls onto his back, “They’re from—Steve—he helped her.”

“Oh,” Robin says softly. She doesn’t know what to make of it. Does Steve like Jonathan? Is he _aware_ of that? “That’s—that’s nice of him.”

“Yes,” Jonathan says, awkwardly, “It was very—very nice. He’s a good—a good friend.”

Robin bites back _he’d make a good boyfriend_ because that’s cruel, Jonathan and Nancy are good together and Steve supports the and so does she.

She wishes there were a happy middle.

__

“You have some food on your face,” Steve says, leaning over to Nancy and thumbing some jam from the corner of her lips.

His touch lingers, and she smiles at him, much softer than she ought to.

Steve shifts his hand so that it cups around her jaw, and he gives her this look, like he might kiss her.

Nancy makes eye contact with Robin, who’s sitting right next to Steve, and Steve pulls back like he’s been burned.

Robin thinks that she understands, now.

__

“It’s not a hickey,” Steve insists, legs dangling over the bridge side, watching Robin throw rocks into the river, “I’m not romantically involved with anyone.”

“Really? Not with Nancy?”

“Nancy’s with—“

“Jonathan,” Robin doesn’t look at Steve, “Do you think I’m stupid?”

“I—Nancy isn’t the type to cheat—“

“No. Neither of you are. So Jonathan must know.”

He shakes his head at her, groaning, “What gave it away?”

“Literally everything. The three of you don’t even try to hid the fact that you’re all dating. It’s so obvious to anybody with eyes.”

“Maybe only to my best friend.”

Robin grins at Steve, “I’ll remember that.”

“You better. I’m not repeating it.”

“Really? Not even if I ask you to say it one more time—?”

Steve sighs, “Listen carefully.”

“Mm-hm.”

“You’re my best friend.”

Robin falls into the river, laughing.

__

Nancy takes one look at Robin and Steve, sopping, Robin smirking and Steve trying to look away, and sighs, “What gave us away?”

“You guys need to stop acting like you were good at hiding it. You really weren’t.”

“She figured it out because we’re all best friends,” Steve says, grinning at Robin, “Those were her words. Best friends.”

“I didn’t—I _never_ said that. _You_ were the one—“

“You didn’t argue.”

“I—you—this is blasphemy.”

“Are you calling yourself god?”

“Are you saying I’d be wrong too?”

Nancy shakes her head and laughs.

__

It’s obvious, now that she knows.

Also, they’re _so gross_, now that she knows.

Steve weaves a flower crown for Nancy, who puts it on Jonathan’s head as she rolls Steve on his back and kisses him. Jonathan takes a photo, and Steve grins dopily at them.

Robin thinks she should be jealous or weirded out.

But she never is. It’s just—comfortable. That’s all it is. Comfortable.

These dumb dorks are her friends, and she’s never been happier.

__

“Stay with us,” Max says as Nancy and Jonathan head upstairs, to ‘check on Steve and the cookies’. Yeah, right.

“Wasn’t planning to go,” Robin says, stretching her legs out, “Too many stairs. I don’t have the stamina.”

“Don’t you play the flute?” Lucas asks, head on Will’s stomach, legs tangled up with Mike’s.

“Yeah, so?”

“Isn’t your lung capacity, like, strong?”

“My leg capacity is, like, weak.”

“That doesn’t make sense, scientifically speaking,” Dustin says, “What leg capacity would you be talking about?”

“Shut it, dweeb. I already graduated school, I don’t need to go back.”

Mike, the little jerk, grins at her, “Well, if you can’t even understand basic scientific concepts—“

She throws a pillow at him.

He falls onto Eleven, laughing loudly.

“How long until we get cookies?” Eleven asks mournfully, staring at the stairs.

“Bets!” the boys shout, Lucas and Mike sitting up so fast that Lucas kicks Mike’s stomach and Mike loses balance, banging his head on the table they use for DnD sessions.

“An hour,” Dustin says, “I bet half my share.”

“Ten minutes,” Lucas says, “Two cookies.”

“_No_ intervening. They have to come down from natural causes.”

“Longer than an hour,” Max says smugly, “All my cookies.”

“Making it so they physically can’t come down is cheating.”

“Ugh. Fine. I take it back.”

“No take-backs!”

“You wanna go, Sinclair?”

“_Ugh_.”

“I bet that at least _two_ of them will be up for longer than an hour,” Robin says, “But Steve will drop off the cookies before heading up to have sex.”

“_Ewww_,” Mike says, horrified, “That’s my _sister_!”

“Will’s okay with it, and we’re talking about his brother.”

“I am not okay with this,” Will says.

“I’m just saying,” Robin smirks, “Betting all my cookies that at least two will be up for longer than an hour.”

“I’ll take that bet,” Mike says, “If we keep Steve down long enough, those two will come down to get him.”

“That qualifies as outside intervention.”

“It does not!”

“It definitely does, dude,” Robin cackles.

The door swing opens and Steve stumbles down the stairs, red-faced, a lipstick stain peeking out below a half-buttoned collar, “Hey, guys, um, I’m going to be upstairs if—“

_Sex_, Robin mouths at the kids.

“Noooo,” Mike says, loudly, covering his ears and rolling on the floor.

Robin cackles.

In the chaos, Steve leaves behind the cookies, then heads back upstairs to Nancy and Jonathan.


End file.
